


Bloom [l'appel du vide]

by seekingsquake



Series: a mess, it grows [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 16:57:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10540662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake
Summary: Chris washes his hands, presses his palms into his eyes briefly, then presses out a couple of imaginary wrinkles in his track jacket. He turns away from the sink and makes to leave the bathroom, but he stops right beside Phichit. Their jackets aren’t brushing, but only just. “You have to advance to the Grand Prix,” he says, and he sounds mostly like himself, mostly like everything is completely okay. “It’ll be my last one.”“Who else knows?” Phichit asks quietly. He can’t look Chris in the face.“Nobody.”And then Chris is gone, and the bathroom door is slowly swinging closed, and Phichit is alone. He walks up to the sink Chris had stood over, and looks down. There’s one lone, vivid yellow petal still in the basin. Phichit hates it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written these characters before, or this trope. If something seems wrong, please do let me know so I can try to fix it!

Phichit has always loved flowers. Pastel orchids, pointed lily petals, bright white daisies. When he and Yuuri were in Detroit, they attended a wedding, and Phichit took selfies surrounded by plumbago shrubs and bundles of periwinkle. Yuuri had woven him a crown out of flowers that looked like little blue bells, and he had tucked a couple of pansies into the chest pocket of Yuuri’s jacket, and those are some of his best memories.

Before Phichit left Thailand to train, when he was very little his older sister would draw little flowers on the backs of his hands and over the swell of his baby cheeks. He would clap and dance and laugh, and she would show him off to their mother. He has always loved flowers. They make good days better and bad days manageable, and everyone looks good with blossoms in their hair, or with petals on sheets under their back, or with bouquets held in their hands.

He rethinks this stance, reconsiders this love of his when he finds Christophe Giacometti hunched over a sink in the men’s bathroom after Skate America. He’s coughing so hard his whole body is shaking, and after one hard hack, Phichit sees a flurry of yellow petals fall from Chris’s lips and into the sink. Chris wheezes and clears his throat a handful of times before turning on the tap. Finally, he looks up into the mirror. They meet eyes through the reflection, and after a long moment, Chris smiles. He says, “You can keep a secret, yes?”

The water is running hard, and Phichit imagines the petals swirling down the drain. He feels sick. His heart aches. He says, “I sure can,” but it lacks his usual enthusiasm. He and Chris are both enthusiastic people, and all their encounters in the past have been marked by teasing touches of fluttering hands, warm laughter, and selfies with fingers held up in peace signs and pouty mouths. Now, they both just look at each other in the mirror.

“You can ask if you want,” Chris croons.

“No,” Phichit insists. “You’ll get better, and then it won’t matter.”

People rarely recover from hanahaki. They both know that. Neither of them says anything about it. Chris washes his hands, presses his palms into his eyes briefly, then presses out a couple of imaginary wrinkles in his track jacket. He turns away from the sink and makes to leave the bathroom, but he stops right beside Phichit. Their jackets aren’t brushing, but only just. “You have to advance to the Grand Prix,” he says, and he sounds mostly like himself, mostly like everything is completely okay. “It’ll be my last one.”

“Who else knows?” Phichit asks quietly. He can’t look Chris in the face.

“Nobody.”

And then Chris is gone, and the bathroom door is slowly swinging closed, and Phichit is alone. He walks up to the sink Chris had stood over, and looks down. There’s one lone, vivid yellow petal still in the basin. Phichit hates it.

 

❀❀❀

 

Phichit spends a lot of time after that stalking Chris’s social media profiles. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. If Chris has it, Phichit’s on it, examining every status update and uploaded photo. Trying to find whoever it is that Chris is choking for. Every time they’re at the same skating venue, he watches Chris like a hawk, watches the people Chris speaks with. Is it one of them? Another skater?

When Victor’s not hovering around Yuri or Yuuri, he and Chris are thick as thieves. Is it him? Chris’s choreographer always stands so close and speaks so softly. Is it him? Chris wraps an arm around Georgi Popovich’s shoulders. Him?

“Phichit-kun!” Yuuri calls, and Phichit jerks his attention away from Chris and back to himself.

“Yuuri!”

“Are you okay?” Yuuri asks, his eyes wide with concern and his mouth just barely turned down into a frown. “You have a really intense look on your face.”

“I’m okay,” Phichit reassures, his hands clenched tight around his cell phone. 

“If you’re sure...”

“I am! Go back to your husband; look at him, you’ve been gone two seconds, and he already looks lost!”

They both laugh, and then Yuuri runs off back to Victor, and when Phichit looks again, Chris is gone. Probably to the bathroom. Probably to cough up yellow flowers and watch himself die a little. Part of Phichit wants to go to him, to stand at his back and rub the tension from his shoulders and keep him from being alone. A bigger part of him wants to forget that he knows anything at all.

 

❀❀❀

 

Chris manages to qualify for the Grand Prix, but just barely, and he doesn’t make the podium. Everyone is speculating about his lack of stamina, his fumbled jumps. He’s looked tired all season; he must be winding down, he must be thinking of retirement. So much speculation, but when sports reporters manage to corner him and ask, all Chris does is brush them off with a charming smile and flippant responses. His voice is a little raspy, and he blames it on allergies, on a cold he’s recovering from, on shouting too much the night before.

_ He’s dying, _ Phichit wants to scream.  _ Somebody just love him, please, _ he wants to cry. But he keeps his mouth shut because he can keep a secret, and when Chris goes silent across the boards once he goes back to Switzerland after the GPF, Phichit knows that it’s so that he can die in private peace. 

Alone.

Phichit has been competing against Chris for his whole senior division career. While Yuuri was always obsessed with Victor, Phichit had had his eyes on Chris. Not in the same way Yuuri was watching Victor, but. Chris was never his idol, though he was always an influence, and he considers them to be friends now. And Phichit isn’t good at letting his friends suffer alone.

 

P: I'll be landing in Zurich at half past noon on Monday! I don't know your address, so you're going to have to pick me up!

 

C: What?

 

P: I'm coming to visit!

 

C: Why? For how long?

 

P: Because it makes me sad to think about you all alone. 

 

C: How long Phichit?

 

P: Until it's over.

 

C: You shouldn't.

 

P: But I am! I already bought the ticket. You need to pick me up at the airport! Unless you really don't want me to come, in which case I'll hitchhike into town and roam around like a vagabond until you feel bad enough to come get me.

 

C: Petit Phichit, my friend...

 

P: Tell me not to, and I won't.

 

Chris never tells him not to. Over the next few days he texts things like  _ you shouldn't _ and  _ you don't have to _ and  _ I'll be okay _ and  _ are you sure? _ but he never once says  _ don't come. _ So Phichit packs, and he gets on a plane, and he goes. 

He's never been to Switzerland before, but he immediately thinks that it's beautiful. Chris, who has been skating since he was just a child, and has been competing since he was thirteen, has never trained anywhere else. He was born here, and he's lived here, and now he'll die here. He'll only be twenty-six years old. 

When Phichit finally makes it through Customs and Arrivals and he has all his luggage, when Chris calls his name and Phichit sees him for the first time, he wants to cry. It's hard to tell whether Chris is paler than usual or not since his skin is a milky sort of tone anyway, but there are heavy bags under his eyes that he's tried to cover with concealer. Yuuri used to do the same thing when suffering from bouts of insomnia, and Phichit is adept and noticing. They hug, and Phichit drops the handle of his bag to fist at the back of Chris's jacket. "I don't know any French or German," Phichit murmurs. "You're going to have to take care of me."

Chris laughs, and his voice is a little raspy. The flowers must be so big if they're bothering his voice box and vocal chords. But Chris speaks as if nothing's bothering him when he says, "Of course! I'm going to make sure you have a beautiful visit."

The whole thing feels like a tragedy unfurling in slow motion. They both feel heavy under the tension of it, and Chris's hand is firm and nearly desperate on the small of Phichit's back as he steers him through the airport. Neither of them pays it any attention, though, and Phichit lets Chris load all of his luggage into the trunk of a small car. 

"You must be feeling jetlagged. It's a little bit of a drive to my home, so feel free to take a nap. Will it bother you if I put on a CD?"

"No," Phichit says as he buckles himself into the passenger seat. "I sleep better with music playing."

"Me too," Chris admits with a smile. He rifles through the glove compartment until he finds a CD by an American band so that they'll both be able to understand the lyrics if either of them feels inclined to do so. By the time they're on the road, Phichit already has his eyes closed. He's not asleep, and they both know it, but Chris is willing to let him pretend.

 

❀❀❀

 

It's nearly three in the morning when Phichit is woken by the sound of loud, heaving coughs from the other side of the wall. Chris's apartment is beautiful but small, and the only bathroom is nestled in between the master bedroom and the guest room. He can hear the ragged panting that is Chris's breaths, and he can't just lie in the darkness waiting for it to be over. He gets up and pads into the bathroom. The door is open, and the light is off, and Phichit leaves it like that as he places a palm gently between Chris's shoulder blades. 

"I'm sorry I woke you," Chris gasps. His t-shirt is damp with sweat. 

Phichit doesn't say  _ it's okay _ or  _ I don't mind. _ It doesn't matter that Chris woke him up accidentally, but the reason why really does bother him. It hurts his heart and makes his eyes feel itchy. But he leans against Chris a little bit more. "How can I help?"

Chris chuckles. He says, "If you could convince me to get the surgery my mother would be eternally grateful, but otherwise I think I could maybe use a cup of tea."

Phichit ignores the comment about the surgery and murmurs, "I can definitely do tea." He leaves Chris braced against the bathroom sink and moves down the hallway into the kitchen. Chris has a bunch of teas that uncurl into flowers, and teas infused with rose and lavender, and Phichit wants to throw them all away but refrains. He selects an unobtrusive green tea and puts the kettle on the stove to boil water. 

He's been in Switzerland for two nearly weeks already, and this is an occurrence that happens every couple of nights. It's difficult for Chris to breathe fully when he's lying down, but he can't fall asleep very deeply if he's propped up. For some reason, it seems like Chris sprouts more flowers at night, and so he gets most of his sleep in small snatches throughout the day. Phichit mostly just putters around the apartment, playing CDs, tidying up, and cuddling with Chris's cat. 

Her name is Pansy. Phichit just calls her Pretty Girl and tries not to think too hard about anything at all.

Once the water's boiling, he pours it into a large mug and pops in the tea bag, and when he turns around Chris is already curled up on the couch in a cable knit sweater, fleece pyjama pants, and thick wool socks. He feels cold all the time, probably because he's always tired. His eyes are droopy behind his glasses. "Thank you."

Phichit sits beside him on the couch and makes sure the tea is within Chris's reach so that he won't have to stretch too much. "No problem."

"You can go back to sleep; I'll just put on some tv or something."

"I'm okay," Phichit insists quietly. 

They watch infomercials in French until the sun comes up, giggling about the over dramatic demonstrations and over priced products. Infomercials transcend language barriers, apparently. They've done this exact thing six or seven times now, and Phichit is thankful when Chris finally dozes off. He really enjoys spending this time with Chris, but he wishes with all his heart that it was happening without the looming presence of impending doom.

 

❀❀❀ 

 

"You can ask me," Chris says over dinner.

Phichit is stuck between a rock, and a rose bush because he knows Chris only keeps bringing it up because he wants to talk about it, but Phichit thinks he might die if he finds out who Chris is growing flowers for. Or fly out to wherever this person is and kill them. Or force them to fall in love with Chris. Or at least find the means to make Chris want to forget them. "I know," he responds but doesn't say anything else. 

 

❀❀❀

 

The weather is exceptional, so Chris decides that he wants to take Phichit hiking. Phichit purses his lips dubiously but ends up conceding. They climb a well-trodden path, and the sun is warm on their skin. Phichit snaps pictures of everything. They drink flavoured mineral water and munch on bananas and trail mix, and around two they stop and rest under a large chestnut tree. Chris falls into a light sleep with his hands crossed over his chest and his sunglasses slipping down his nose, and Phichit takes a picture. 

He's been taking a lot of candids of Chris, and he doesn't end up posting any of them online. Chris has ceased almost all social media activity for a reason, and Phichit knows that Chris doesn't want anyone to see him like this. These will be the last photos of Chris's life, and Phichit cherishes them. Sometimes, late at night when Chris is either sleeping or taking a walk around the block to try to clear his lungs, Phichit scrolls through the pictures and cries. 

He's crying now, but he doesn't realise it until Chris blinks awake and mumbles, "Shh, come here."

Phichit had intended to come out here to keep Chris from being alone and to hopefully provide some modicum of comfort. It appears that he spends more of his time being comforted by Chris. It should make him feel guilty, but all he feels is sad.

"You can go home whenever you want to," Chris whispers into Phichit's hair as Phichit curls up against his chest. "I'm not afraid of being alone."

"I don't want to go," Phichit insists quietly. That isn't the problem. The problem is that he doesn't want Chris to go, either.

 

❀❀❀

 

He'd gone for a run because he was starting to feel a little stir crazy, and when he gets back, Chris is falling to pieces on the kitchen floor. He's gasping for breath, and there are large yellow petals scattered on the tile around him as well as sticking wetly to the skin of his cheeks, chin, and neck. And it's alarming, but not as frightening as the flood of tears.

In the three months that Phichit has been here, he hasn't ever seen or even heard Chris cry.

Chris's phone in one the floor too, but it's clattered in the front hall, about as far away from Chris as possible. "Chris! What happened?"

Chris shakes his head and tries to draw a breath, but ends up coughing instead. His whole body heaves, and then in a mess of saliva and phlegm Chris coughs up a whole sunflower blossom. Phichit is horrified. The colour is so vivid, so  _ happy, _ and Chris is trembling so hard he looks like he's going to jitter right out of his skin. It's such a cruel thing that a flower so cheerful should thrive in Chris's pain, should be the thing strangling him.

He's on the floor before he even understands how he got there, pulling Chris against him and squeezing him tight around the shoulders. He has the inkling that maybe Chris's phone has something to do with this; Chris doesn't do much with it anymore except play music over his Bluetooth speakers and Google fun, low energy things for them to do. "What happened?"

"Instagram," Chris chuckles, but his voice scrapes out of this throat, and there are still tears in his eyes. He tries to breathe, but his breath stutters. "I shouldn't have looked. It doesn't seem fair that he can be out there having the time of his life and I'm turning into fertiliser. I just got a little angry. I'm okay now."

"You're crying," Phichit murmurs.

"I'm okay," Chris insists.

Phichit doesn't know what else to do, so he lets it go.

 

❀❀❀

 

Later that night he knocks on Chris's bedroom door, and when Chris calls out to him, he pokes his head inside. "You deserve to be loved, and you deserve to be alive, and if this person doesn't adore you, then he doesn't deserve you anyway."

Chris stares at him, pensive and fond, but he doesn't say anything.

"I just thought you should know," Phichit adds lamely before beating a hasty retreat back to his own room.

 

❀❀❀

 

When he talks to Victor on the phone, Chris speaks a confusing jumble of French and Russian, and Phichit has the sinking suspicion that it's so that he can't understand what they're talking about. He's standing out on the patio, and he's dressed in nothing but a silk robe that is long enough to be decent but far too short to be modest. He laughs, and it's a bright sound, and it curls around Phichit's ribs like a hug. And then he hacks, and Phichit feels sick. 

Chris's voice drops to a low murmur and then raises again in frustration before falling away into nothing. The quiet lasts only a moment, and then he chuckles. He says, "Victor," and  _ Victor _ sounds so warm and familiar on his tongue that Phichit's body jerks and he stares hard at Chris through the patio door.

When the call ends, and Chris finally comes back inside, he says, "There are three people that know now, and there will be at least four within the next few minutes if I know Victor at all." He says it casually as if he hasn't waited for nearly a year to tell his best friend that he's dying; as if Phichit hasn't known for eight whole months already. He even almost smiles.

Phichit could ask, but he feels like he might vomit, so he says nothing. 

 

❀❀❀

 

Chris makes a doctor's appointment, and he makes sure that Phichit's running errands around town when he goes. The tight feeling in his chest and the tickle of petals at the back of his throat have eased over the past week or so, and he wants desperately to be pragmatic, but he can't fight the little flare of hope that's lit in his gut.

He hasn't mentioned anything to Phichit. He wants to know first, before getting his friend's hopes up.

They take x-rays of Chris's chest, and his doctor says, "Christophe," and his eyes are wide with wonder. "The flowers are dying."

"What?"

The doctor shoves the x-ray images into Chris's hands, and where a year ago there was a fuzzy black mass in his lungs, now there are only small grey spots. His hands shake, and he laughs a little hysterically. "How?" he chokes out, and his voice is thick but this time not with sunflower petals.

"There are only two things I can think of," the doctor says as he squeezes Chris's shoulder. "Either your love is returned, or you're not in love anymore."

"Well, it definitely isn't the first one," Chris confides seriously, and then he laughs again. 

"Once you cough up these last buds, it should be over. If your symptoms come back make another appointment, but it looks like you're very likely in the clear now."

Chris smiles the whole drive home. He's never been so happy to not be in love. He can't wait to tell Phichit.

 

❀❀❀

 

There are two quiet weeks between them before it's brought to Phichit's attention. Chris creeps into his bedroom around three in the afternoon; Phichit had been laying on the bed and scrolling through the photos on his phone, but he tucks the device under his pillow when the door creaks open. "What's up?"

"I want to show you something."

Phichit sits up as Chris comes to sit on the edge of the bed. He grabs Phichit's hand and drops a tiny, wilted sunflower head into his palm. "What is this?"

"The beginning of the rest of my life, my friend."

Phichit is very still. Slowly he looks up at Chris's face. His lips press together, and his eyes are filmy with tears. "I don't understand. What  _ is _ this?"

"The last bud," Chris coos, his hands squeezing Phichit's. "I went to the doctors. My x-rays are entirely clear. This is the last flower I grew."

Phichit makes a high pitched noise in the back of his throat, and then he throws his arms around Chris's neck. He laughing, bright and relieved, but he's crying so hard he's shaking, and Chris holds onto him tightly. "How?" Phichit demands, his face pressed into Chris's neck. "How did this happen?"

"I fell out of love."

Under any other circumstance, from any other person, Phichit would be sad for them. Right now, all he feels is joy.  _ "How?" _

 

❀❀❀

 

Chris doesn't know whether or not it would have happened if Phichit hadn't spent the last six months with him, but there's a part of him that screams that Phichit saved his life. He refuses to say that aloud, though, because Phichit is young and a long way from home and now a very good friend. Instead, he hugs Phichit tightly in the airport, and he says, "Please come back whenever you want. I'll be here whenever."

Phichit hugs back just as tightly, almost clutching at Chris, almost like he doesn't even want to leave. "It's your turn. I expect you to spend half a year in Thailand."

Chris laughs. "I will. Just tell me when."

They call boarding for Phichit's flight, but Phichit still hangs on a little longer. "We'll still be friends once I'm gone?"

"Of course. You're my best friend, Phichit. You don't need to doubt that."

"Promise?"

"I promise," Chris whispers. "Call me when you land. Get on your plane before it leaves without you."

"Okay," Phichit says. He finally, finally lets Chris go, and he grabs his bags and gets in line to board his plane, and he smiles. 

When Chris gets home he opens Instagram. Phichit has spam posted hundreds of pictures from his stay here, and Chris spam likes all of them. Yuuri is posting photos of poodle puppies, and Chris likes those too. Victor has recently posted a picture of his and Yuuri's hands clasped strategically to show off their wedding rings. The caption is  _ happy second anniversary to us! _ Chris looks at the picture for a long time, and then he likes it. 


End file.
